Bike From Scratch

So I’ve had the bike for awhile now. I’ve put about 2000ish miles on it so far. The bulk of that has been around town to and from work or the grocery store. I also did RAGBRAI, which about 450 miles over a week. Over all I’m pretty happy. I’m still working out the kinks on positioning, but its been a great bike so far. My Hillborne is from the first production run (the green ones, but I got a custom color) and it is 60cm. To my knowledge there have not been any changes in the subsequent production runs. The bike was built in Taiwan under contract from Rivendell. I’ve read that Maxway builds them, but I’ve got no idea if that’s true. I’m a pretty big guy (6’2″ 200 – 210) so keep that in mind when I talk about things like ride, handling etc. I think if someone weighs less than me they would have a different experience on the bike.

The detail work on the bike is nice. The lugs look good, and the powder coat I got seems of decent quality (no drips etc). It is obvious from a distance that the frame is not as nice as the other frames in the Rivendell line. But at less than half the price of an Atlantis or a A. Homer Hilsen that is to be expected (I had my bike next to a Hilsen at RAGBRAI is where I first noticed this). It just doesn’t have the same kind of finish quality that the other bikes do. Part of it is paint (the Hillbornes tend to be a solid color without the cream head tube, and mine is powder coated instead of wet paint), part of it is the decals just don’t look as nice, and part of it is the lugs aren’t as fancy as the other bikes. All that makes it sounds like the bike looks bad. It does not. In fact it looks better than most other things on the road. Pictures of mine can be found on flickr. People stop and ask about the color and what it is quite often. Like most other Rivendell owners I get the typical “did you restore a vintage bike” type questions. Most people don’t believe me when I tell them the bike was built in the last year.

The ride is great, maybe the best bike I’ve ever ridden. Handling is responsive without being twitchy (I’m running 33.3 Jack Brown’s on Mavic a719′s with Deore LX hubs and drop bars). At a reasonable speed (anything past walking pace) a lean will get you where you want to go, and the bike holds its line without any additional input. At slow speeds you turn the handle bars to go places, like any other bike. I’ve found it to be incredibly stable at slow speeds. At 5mph it isn’t hard to hold a line.The low speed handling of the bike is easily the most impressive thing about the ride. The fork, aside from being gorgeous absorbs most of the shocks from the road, like a good steel bike should. I have only good thoughts about my comfort on the bike. Even after long days on less than perfect Iowa farm roads, never too bumpy, yet I always get some rode feel. Bumps are softened quite a bit compared to my aluminum go fast bike, and not quite as squishy as my front suspension ATB.

Riding out of the saddle I feel a little frame flex. Nothing too terrible. When I’m mashing out of the saddle and working hard with a load on the back I can make the chain skip from one gear to another. I have a nine speed drive train, so if one was to have fewer gears in the rear I doubt they would experience such a problem. I’ve had it skip on me two or three times. I do feel the bike plane when I’m moving at a good clip. Its a fun feeling once you figure out what it is.

For the most part the bike is very stable, at speed slow etc. One thing I’ve noticed is front end shimmy when I’m riding with no hands. There are usually a combination of reason for this behavior, and most of them aren’t related to frame construction, or so the internet says. So I don’t blame the frame yet. As soon as I lean forward its goes away (before I put my hands on the bars). This is probably the only thing about the bike that bothers me. I’ve switched out handle bars, adjusted my saddle position (height and front to back) and not been able to make it go away… meh, whatev.

With a load I notice no significant difference when I’ve got it down low (in my saddle bag) on the back. I’ve carried cases of beer, camping gear, snacks, laptops and clothes etc. Probably up to 30 lbs in the saddle bag at one time. I notice nothing with the weight down low. Occasionally I’ll put a child seat (xtracycle pea pod, or BoBike if you’re Dutch) on the bike. This attaches to the seat tube and the seat stays. Its possible to ride out of the saddle when I have my son behind me (30 lbs or so), but I don’t feel very comfortable doing it. I really feel him moving around behind me and the frame flexing quite a bit in the rear triangle. I don’t think any bike is designed to carry a load up high like this, so I don’t fault the bike for it. I have stopped carrying my kid on it though for fear of him getting hurt and breaking the frame (I’ve got an old trek that is a bit stouter in the rear that I use for this now). I’ve never carried anything on the front, so I don’t have any good feeling for how the bike does with a front load. One of these days I’ll buy a front rack for camping and update this post or create another.

I really did think this would be the one bike to rule them all, and I do ride it quite a bit but I don’t think it will replace all the bikes in my garage. I still ride my go fast Specialized quite often. They claim that it can be a club ride bike, I’m not convinced on that front. I think most of my skepticism has to do with the size of the frame, with the saddle level to the bars I can’t get myself out of the wind. I’m still mucking with this a bit, and I’m sure I’ll have something more to say about it when I get the positioning all worked out. Its great for tooling around and commuting, but to go fast with my friends I pick another bike.

Overall, great bike. If you can stomach what other people assume you and your opinions are when you ride it (and that’s another post all its own), get one. You’ll be glad you did. I worked directly with the folks at Rivendell  (Grant initially and later Jay) when I bought mine and was pretty happy with the buying experience aside from a few communication issues regarding the paint (which I have discussed elsewhere). In the end they made that right and I think only good things of those guys. I’ll continue to shop there for sure.